. My 14 year old daughter is typical of most kids in that she uses technology to entertain herself and talk to her friends. Not only am I a bad parent but I too have shared stories of students who figure stuff out on their own and do amazing, important stuff with the technology. We seek out these examples to show what's possible but statements like, "our kids are already connecting" drive me nuts. I do try however to add the huge caveat to those examples by saying not "if you can't beat 'me, join 'em" message but rather if we want more kids doing awesome things, they need our help. That distinction often gets lost and the digital native myth grows.

Let me start with a borderline heretical confession: I believe that the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" have done more harm than good in shaping the direction of teaching and learning in the 21st Century. The way I see it, calling students "digital natives" and any adult over...

As much as I value the posts about being careful not to promote ourselves too much I think the pendulum for the most part is still on the side you describe with very little recognition and self promotion isn't all that rampant. At times, anyone who blogs or tweets could easily get blamed for this but it's far less of an issue that providing teachers with opportunities for feedback and acknowledgement .
I get an inordinate amount of praise and recognition for just doing my job. As the husband of a grade 2 teacher, it's saddening to see how little recognition she gets for doing her job and as every classroom teacher knows, it's a really hard job.
So perhaps people like me, who work in education but not for a school, should be called out occasionally for self promoting. But also remember that many of us (not so much me because I'm a salaried employee) don't have a regular income and have to create awareness.
But if you're talking about teachers I'd ask people to back off and let them have a little or even a lot of recognition whether it's somewhat self promoted or not. Lord knows, they deserve every bit of it.

Poking through my feed reader last weekend, I stumbled across a provocative Chris Wejr bit questioning whether or not social spaces were becoming nothing more than online popularity contests where people spend more time pimping their own ideas than they do listening to -- and learning with -- ot...

For me a couple of ideas stand out.
1. Twitter is an awful place for conversation. It's like trying to have a debate or intelligent discussion at a rock concert.
2. Civil Discourse is in short supply. Being able to disagree vehemently with someone and yet keeping it respectful and fruitful is something not many can do. Anytime I think I might be able to do it with someone who opposes my view, I relish that chance. Sounds like that didn't happen here.
3. Your space is your space just like your home is like your home. You invite whomever like it by whatever standards you choose.
4. The beauty of online is it allows us to have a variety of associations and relationships both strong and weak. I try and insure I have a number of dissenting voices nearby to challenge me but I control the degree to which I interact. That's both safe and useful. Being able to block someone in a certain space doesn't mean you have to totally ignore them particularly if you're mature enough to be able to find the grain of truth they may be sharing. Again, not suggesting that's the case here but because someone's a jerk on twitter might not mean they don't have a point. The empowerment comes from knowing it's not all or none. Find the ways in which you can still learn or be challenged.

It's been an interesting few days in my Twitterstream, y'all. I've been engaged in a bit of a digital slugfest with a guy I'll call Conner in the interest of protecting his identity. Conner saw a Tweet sharing a Darcy Mullen bit on the rationale behind flipping learning spaces that referenced...

Makes perfect sense. I've had similar experiences with Delta and have blogged about customer service and twitter on a number of occasions.
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2012/01/22/2095/
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2010/01/06/twitter-saved-me-764-13/
What your lesson and my experience teach me is that by simply listening and responding, they usually win me over. Twitter has become a place for organizations to become personal. That's why it bothers me when schools or businesses set up accounts and only use them to broadcast rather than converse.
I'm guessing had you tweeted earlier, they would have resolved your issue but as you say, the apology and acknowledgement was a big deal. What schools in particular have a hard time getting over is that they think that they'll open themselves up to criticism. Which they will. But the truth is, it's already happening, they just aren't responding.

Delta Airlines ticked me off yesterday, y'all. Wanting to get home from a Solution Tree PLC Institute in time to put my beyond-beautiful 3-year old daughter to bed, I got to the San Antonio airport FIVE HOURS before my scheduled departure in hopes of jumping an earlier plane. I already knew tha...

So sorry for your loss Bill. Your relationship with your father sounds similar to mine. What a privilege to be able to have a great father. I know his memory and conversations will be with you forever. Take care my friend.

I don't think I ever told all y'all, but one of the reasons that I've written as regularly as I have on the Radical is because I knew that my Dad has spent the past several years waiting for new posts. He loved the stuff -- but more importantly, he loved the conversations that my content sparke...

As we said in our official invitation, Bex' 4th birthday party was about old fashioned play. And old fashioned play it was: pillow sack races eggs-on-spoons races (hard boiled eggs given the kids' ages) water balloon tosses chalk drawings on the fence shoe pair matching sprints wacky clothes ...